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Error 'Failed to load settings correctly. Application will now exit' when opening the Switchboard in GFI MailEssentials ( ONLY)

Author: Luis Fernandes Updated

Answer

PROBLEM

When opening the GFI MailEssentials Switchboard, the following error is displayed:
 
'Failed to load settings correctly. Application will now exit.'

This may also coincide with not being able to access the GFI MailEssentials Configuration due to:
 
No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 192.140.5.15:8013
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 192.140.5.15:8013
 

ENVIRONMENT

  • GFI MailEssentials 
  • All support environments

SOLUTION

Firstly, ensure there are no port conflicts between MailEssentials and another program:
  1. Open a command prompt (cmd.exe) and type netstat -abn > c:\gfiports.txt
  2. Open gfiports.txt in a text editor and search for 8021, 8013 and 8015
  3. Confirm which service is using this port. If anything other than a GFI MailEssentials service is running on the port, then it confirms that there is a port conflict between the GFI MailEssentials application and a third party application
After verifying there is no port conflict, please go through the following:
  1. Browse to %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\ and make a backup of the 'hosts' file
  2. Open this file in a text editor.
  3. The Hosts file will usually contain the following:

# For example:

#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

192.140.5.15    gfitest-exc01
192.140.5.15    gfitest-exc01.gfi.local
192.140.5.15    localhost

#127.0.0.1       localhost
#::1             localhost

  1. Change the first localhost entry to 127.0.0.1, so it looks like:

192.140.5.15    gfitest-exc01
192.140.5.15    gfitest-exc01.gfi.local
127.0.0.1          localhost

  1. Save the changes to the Host file
  2. Open Command Prompt and perform an IISRESET
  3. The Switchboard and Configuration should now be accessible

CAUSE

The localhost entry was not pointing to the correct address.